American high-school seniors just posted the lowest math and reading scores on record. The results come from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, often called the nation’s report card. The tests are run by the National Center for Education Statistics in the U.S. Education Department and overseen by the National Assessment Governing Board. They were given to tens of thousands of students between January and March 2024. The trend did not start with COVID. As one summary noted, declines began before the pandemic and have continued, with few student groups or regions spared.
Who compiles the scores and why they matter
NAEP is widely regarded as the gold-standard national exam because it is consistent across states and is given to representative samples of students. It offers one of the only comparable views of student performance in a system where most decisions are local. Leaders who oversee or analyze NAEP warned that the latest picture is serious. Lesley Muldoon, who leads the board that oversees the tests, said, “Students are taking their next steps in life with fewer skills and less knowledge in core academics than their predecessors a decade ago.” Matthew Soldner, acting commissioner of NCES, called the findings “historic lows” and said they “should galvanize all of us to take concerted and focused action to accelerate student learning.”
The average 12th-grade math score is the lowest since the current framework began in 2005. Reading is below any point since the assessment started in 1992. Between 2019 and 2024, the share of seniors deemed proficient slipped to 22 percent in math and 35 percent in reading. The bottom of the scale is even more troubling. Nearly 45 percent of seniors scored below basic in math, the highest share since 2005. Nearly one third scored below basic in reading, also a record.
The skill breakdowns show how these results play out in classrooms. In reading, roughly two thirds of seniors could identify the purpose of a persuasive essay, yet “only one in five was able to draw a conclusion from such an essay, supported by the text.” In math, 60 percent could use area and density to deduce a population, while just under half could turn a real-world scenario into an algebraic expression.
How far reading have students fallen
Reading has slipped at both the average and the low end. The average 2024 score is the lowest in the history of the 12th-grade reading assessment. Among the lowest performers, the average reading score was 224, “25 points lower than their peers in 1992.” Many seniors “lack the skills to paraphrase ideas from a political speech or identify a story character’s motives,” a sign that basic comprehension and inference have weakened.
Eighth-grade science scores fell below 2019 levels, erasing gains since the test began in 2009. In 2024, 38 percent of eighth graders scored below basic in science, up from 33 percent in 2019. In earlier grades, math has shown some partial recovery, but reading has generally stayed low or declined further.
Declines began before the pandemic
Researchers stress that the pattern is larger than COVID. Soldner noted that “scores for our lowest-performing students are at historic lows, continuing declines that began more than a decade ago.” The results echo drops on international exams and on tests of children just entering school. Harvard’s Martin West urged caution about single-cause stories, saying, “We should be thinking of possible explanations that transcend national boundaries,” and although phones and social media are likely factors, there is still no “smoking gun.”
Likely causes that keep coming up
Multiple forces inside and outside school are being discussed. None is sufficient alone, yet together they help explain the slide.
- Instructional disruptions and recovery headwinds. Schools that were closed longer tended to see larger declines. High absence, student misbehavior, teacher turnover, and screen distraction have made recovery harder.
- The rise of screens over sustained reading. Carol Jago at UCLA described a shift from long books to short excerpts. Twenty years ago her students might read 20 books a year. “Now, some English classes are assigning just three.” She added, “To be a good reader, you have to have the stamina to stay on the page, even when the going gets tough… we’re not building those muscles in kids.”
- Fewer hands-on science experiences. A shrinking share of eighth graders report inquiry-based activities. Christine Cunningham of the Museum of Science in Boston said labs and projects were disrupted, which hurt understanding of core scientific ideas. She also cautioned that declines predated COVID. “We don’t know exactly what the cause of it is, but it would be incomplete to assume that if we hadn’t had COVID, the score would not have gone down.”
- Policy priorities and accountability. Over the past decade, national pressure to raise scores eased. Some Republicans focused on private-school vouchers, while many Democrats emphasized social supports like nutrition and mental health. Efforts to strengthen early reading and expand advanced math have not yet turned into national gains.
- Cellphones at school. Many states have moved to restrict phones to cut distractions. West pointed to the influence of social media and smartphones, while noting there is no single proof of causation.
Widening gaps and shifting patterns
Gaps between the highest and lowest performers widened. Students who were already struggling fell further behind. Girls’ scores, on average, dropped faster than boys’ in several areas, reopening gender gaps in STEM that had narrowed before the pandemic. The achievement gap in eighth-grade science is the widest on record. It also widened in 12th-grade math.
There are two cautions in the 12th-grade results. Rising graduation rates may mean more lower-performing students are taking the test, which could hide progress for others. It is also unclear whether there has been any recovery since testing in early 2024, since these data are now more than a year old.
Senior officials framed the results as an emergency, yet they disagree on remedies.
- Education Secretary Linda McMahon called the numbers “a devastating trend,” agreed the situation is a “national emergency,” and said she and President Donald Trump are working to return control of education dollars to the states. “Success isn’t about how much money we spend, but who controls the money and where that money is invested,” she said.
- Margaret Spellings, who served under President George W. Bush and now leads the Bipartisan Policy Center, argued for strong federal action and warned that talk of closing the department is “a distraction.” “When your house is on fire, you don’t talk about making renovations,” she said.
- Marc Porter Magee of 50CAN pointed to states that have improved results for younger students. “There’s a road map out there from states like Louisiana and Tennessee, focused on high-dosage tutoring, high-quality curriculum and clear information for parents on where their kids stand.”
- D. Graham Burnett, a historian of science at Princeton, cautioned against giving up on deep learning in a screen age. “It’s important that we not throw out reading,” he said. “We are going to carry forward the tradition in powerful ways, and we’re going to do it in ways that are unrecognizable to our grandparents.”
These scores arrived as the Education Department faced staffing cuts. Reporting noted that NAEP’s testing arm had layoffs and canceled contracts, though Soldner told reporters the cuts did not hinder analysis of these results. The debate over structure and spending has become louder, even as the data signal that day-to-day learning needs urgent attention.
NP Editor: We know what to do. The question is do we have the will to move backward in time, raise the standards, and demand that students meet those standards.
